New World, New Rules
by Zedek
Summary: Without any warning, Steve is thrust into a strange new world where the days are calm and the nights are deadly. Dangerous creatures roam these lands. He is alone and terrified and has lost his memory, and must face this ordeal by himself - though he does not even know where he is headed to. Will he survive the journey, or will he succumb to the darkness?


****Disclaimer:**** I do not own _Minecraft_. _Minecraft_ is a product of Mojang **.  
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 ** _PART I: THE OVERWORLD_  
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He awoke to the sound of birds lightly chirping in the distance. Birds were lightly chirping in the distance, and the merry burble of a nearby river filled his ears with a pleasant sound. He didn't want to open his eyes just yet. _Yawn._ He lay spread-eagled on the ground, basking in the sun. The many pine trees around him were rustling in the wind, their leaves whispering and murmuring to each other.

He opened his eyes, squinting slightly. The sun was directly overhead, poking its fiery head through the clouds, but it was still chilly. A bright blue, cloudy sky greeted him. Tall, dark pine trees grew all around him, swaying to a rhythm only they could hear. He was lying down in a picturesque forest. Lush green grass grew abundantly on the ground, a few dainty little flowers of red and yellow grew in clumps to his left, and the river was making a soothing, calming sound. He inhaled deeply, savoring the smell of the fresh air, and yawned again. Suddenly, his face assumed a perplexed expression.

 _Wait a minute. Where am I?_

Shakily getting onto his knees, and looking all around, he made his way to the river. He still felt vaguely sleepy. The silky, sky-blue river was as wide as he was tall. A small, speckled fish gracefully leapt out of the water and dropped back in. He crawled closer and knelt on the ground, peering into the river. The river was shallow enough that he could make out the rocks and weeds that lay on the riverbed. He cupped his hands and filled them with the pure water. He took a sip - it was so cold that it seared his throat, yet it was delicious - and splashed some on his face, removing all traces of sleep. Wiping his face with his hands, he noticed that he could also see his reflection in its rippling surface of the river.

He gazed at it. A handsome, dark-skinned man stared back at him, blinking at him with eyes of blue. An unruly mop of brown hair lay in a tangled mess across his forehead, partly obscuring his bushy eyebrows. His chin was pointed and his cheekbones were high and angular. A clean-shaven face and two tightly pursed pink lips completed the picture.

It was the face of a stranger.

He remained frozen to the spot, shock filling his mind. How could he not recognize himself? Who _was_ he? He racked his brains, desperately searching for an answer. Nothing. He could not remember anything - his name, where he lived, his wife's name (or if he even had one). It was as if someone had wiped his mind clean, obliterating his identity and leaving him devoid of his memories, but retaining his grasp of everything else. An empty shell. He couldn't tear his eyes away from his reflection. His expression became more and more worried until finally his reflection was glowering at him. Noticing this, he dropped his brooding expression, but his mind was still churning.

He stood up fully now, chewing his lower lip. He took a good, long look at himself. He wore a plain blue t-shirt half tucked into his dark blue jeans, which ended just below his ankles. A pair of unmarked light grey sneakers adorned his feet, which were covered by two blue socks. Nothing else. All of his clothes fit him perfectly.

He sighed. He looked inside his pockets, and to his surprise, he found something. A brown leather pouch with a drawstring around it. It looked extremely small, but the interior was deceptively large, as he found out a second later. He could stick his arm inside up to the elbow. Raising an eyebrow, he stuffed it back into his right pocket.

 _And just what am I doing here?_ he asked himself. _Am I alone here? What is this place? How do I get out of here? Above all, why me?_ The torrent of questions couldn't be stopped, and he had no answers for any of them.

In frustration, he went over to the nearest pine tree and punched it hard, hoping to bruise his fist and take his mind off things. Instead, what happened was that the bark cracked. Curious. He blinked. His hand didn't hurt either. He gave it another good, hard punch. More cracks spider-webbed through the tree. He blinked again, dumbfounded. Another punch. A big shard of the bark snapped off and fell at his feet. Several punches later, the bark gave way and broke into several chunks of wood, and the tall tree fell to the ground with a groan, the leaves still shivering slightly.

He stared at the tree. _How the- ah, who cares?_ he thought. _New world, new rules._

He was indeed in a new world, and he realized that if were to survive in this strange new place, he needed tools - and, more importantly, weapons to defend himself from anything. And with an sense of foreboding, he glanced at the forest around him, somehow knowing that it was not as innocent or safe as it seemed.

 _Back to work,_ he thought. He picked up the fallen pieces of wood and broke them into smaller planks. He went around punching and breaking many of the trees in the vicinity. It was long and arduous work.

After a while, he stopped, exhausted. He gathered the wood into a small pile and sat down. Looking around, he spotted a sharp chunk of rock that would do. He grabbed it and placed a thick wooden plank on the ground, then began whittling the wood, trying to craft a rudimentary sword, or dagger. It took him three tries to make a 'dagger' - it had a rough hilt, and a 'blade' that thinned towards the top. It looked like it would break after a few hits - and he'd probably get a few splinters, too - but that didn't really matter for now. He had something to fight with. He slashed the air in front of him experimentally. Then, for the first time since his arrival, he grinned widely.

He similarly struggled to make a shovel, an axe, and another dagger. The axe was terrible, but the shovel and dagger turned out okay. It used up nearly all of the wood, gave him a wound for his efforts (he nicked himself on the thumb), and took a decent amount of time, but he was moderately pleased with his work. He sat back against a tree and looked at his handiwork with satisfaction. Suddenly, his stomach gave a loud grumble. He hadn't even realized that he was starving. The hard labor cost him a lot of energy, but he was so engrossed in his work he didn't notice. He stuffed the axe, shovel, and spare dagger into his apparently magical pouch before thinking of a course of action.

A sudden _oink_ to his right broke into his thoughts. He got up in one fluid motion and pointed his crude dagger at the source. His eyes grew wide, and he burst into laughter. It was a pig - a large, pink, curly-tailed, pot-bellied pig. To him, that meant only one thing - food! The pig had heard his loud guffaw and was looking warily at him, unsure of whether to run or hold its ground. After hastily stuffing his tools into his belt, he made the decision for the pig, charging at it a second later, and stabbing the pig in the side with his wooden dagger.

The pig gave a loud squeal as a large gash appeared in its side and blood poured out of the wound. It panicked and took off in a random direction, leaving a trail of blood, and was closely followed by him. His stomach was rumbling and he intended to sleep on a full stomach tonight. So he ran and ran, until both he and the pig were completely winded. Taking advantage of the pig's sudden immobility, he lunged forward and ended its misery. Eyes glinting with greed, he quickly slit a hole in the pig's soft underbelly and gutted it, then chopped some of the meat into thick slices. He paused. Should he cook it first? _No,_ _cooking the meat would take too long,_ he reasoned.

He took a small bite of the meat, chewed it slowly - and gagged.

"Bleargh! That's disgusting!" he muttered, spitting the meat out. His voice was hoarse from disuse.

But he _was_ hungry, and making a fire would take far too long... Sighing, he grabbed a fresh slice of pork and quickly stuffed it in his mouth, chewed violently, and forced it down his throat, retching and spluttering all the while. He repeated the procedure four times, still gagging. But it was worth it. He felt the first traces of energy trickle into his system, and he closed his eyes and lay back against a tree.

Twenty minutes later, rested and feeling somewhat replete, he opened his eyes and glanced at the sky. The sun was directly overhead. _Damn!_ He groaned and cursed himself for wasting so much time. Preparations needed to be made for dusk, for who knew what unknown dangers this place held?

Presently he set to making a fire. He felled two trees with his axe (which nearly broke) and made several logs, which he arranged in a rough pyramid. A layer of sticks and dried leaves lay inside. Picking up a jagged rock and a piece of shale from under a tree, he repeated struck the two together, producing sparks. They were directed towards the center of the fire. The fire caught after a few tries. He shielded the flickering orange flames from the wind as he blew on them slightly. More leaves caught fire. Eventually, the entire interior was on fire, and it was only a matter of minutes before the logs were set ablaze as well.

He was cheered slightly by the warmth that washed over him, and by the merry dancing of the flames. Quickly fashioning a wooden spit from the remaining wood, he hung the pig over the fire, cranking it slowly with a handle. The delicious smell of roast pork soon wafted towards him, and he started drooling a little. After thirty grueling minutes of cranking and waiting, the meat was ready. He gently removed the spit, lay the pig on the ground, sliced a small piece off with his dagger, and inserted the golden-brown meat into his mouth. It was cooked to near perfection. The outside was crisp and blackened, while the inside was juicy and tender. It was heavenly, especially after eating that raw meat.

Quickly cutting the meat into slices, he stuffed most of them into his pouch. He had no salt to preserve them, though, so the pork would probably go rancid quite soon. Reflecting on this, he ate ravenously, only pausing between bites to swallow and to wipe the juices running down his chin. After eating his fill, he gave a loud, resounding burp, and crawled over to the river to drink some water. Then he against rested against the tree. _Yawn._ After the day's hard labor, perhaps he would take a short rest.

 _Just for an hour or two,_ he assured himself. _Then we'll see what to do_.

And as he shut his eyes and fell asleep within seconds, he failed to notice the sun slipping below the horizon and slowly plunging the world into darkness.

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A menacing _hiss_ awoke him from his slumber. He jerked awake, and his hand slipped to his makeshift dagger. He looked around blearily, vaguely wondering why it was so dark. The fire had died out, but was still smoking slightly. A crescent moon was visible, its ethereal bluish-white glow barely reaching the ground where he was seated. He had a nagging feeling that something was wrong, but he wasn't sure what it was. Then his gaze fell on the spot next to the fire, and he realized what it was: the pig's remains were missing.

Another _hiss_. A flash of red.

He was now jolted fully awake. He slowly stood up, surveying the trees around him. The trees effectively blocked all the moonlight from entering the forest, which was now shrouded in black. _The perfect cover for an ambush_ _,_ he realized, his heart filling with dread.

Warily backing away from the tree towards the fire, he accidentally trod on a stick - which went _snap_.

Then all hell broke loose.


End file.
